It was one of those periods where we just couldn’t get it together. We couldn’t get in sync. We couldn’t settle down for more than 5 seconds. I ran out of strategies. I felt my body tensing and my throat squeezing in frustration and a sense of powerlessness.

So I closed my eyes and took a single breath. Just closing my eyes was enough to shift me out of panic mode and into a place of functionality. A place where my prefrontal cortex could stay online. A place where I could speak from what I wanted to say v. what I WANTED to say (if you know what I mean.)

Sometimes, we just need to cut out the frustrations for a split second. Enough to short circuit the escalation in ourselves so that we can keep coming back. Keep trying again.